The PintSized Pinup
by Shaindy
Summary: A picture's worth a thousand words, or so they say. This picture though, is worth so much more. S/J pre-slash.


Disclaimer: Just playing in the sandbox, and I put them back in much better condition than I found them. ;)

A/N: There was a prompt by elishtar several months back (no joke, it was in January) that I saw and thought, wow, that would be fun to write. It's been rolling around in my brain since then, but I never sat down to write it. But then, a couple of days ago, atlinmerrick responded to a comment I had made to one of her stories that ended up being the kick in the pants I needed. So really, this story is only here because of her. If you read this, thanks so much. :)

Thanks to The_Circus for the Britpicking help on this. If you're not reading her story The Montague Street Doctor on AO3, you're missing out. A completely different take on John post-TRF.

* * *

John Watson was muttering to himself, imitating the voice of one Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade of Scotland Yard.

"It'll be a new experience, John." That was the first thing Greg had said when he started trying to talk him into this ridiculous idea.

After seeing John's magnificent eyeroll, perfected in the year since he had taken up with Sherlock, he had tried another tack:

"It'll be _fun_, John. You need some fun in your life."

That didn't work either, for John had snorted and simply pointed out that he lived with _Sherlock Holmes_, for heaven's sake. That was when the annoyingly persistent DI had whipped out the _coup de grâce:_

"It's going to benefit the Yard's Fund for Families of Officers Lost in the Line of Duty, John."

The bastard knew John wouldn't turn him down after hearing that. But, John mused, as he shrugged out of the bathrobe he was wearing and stepped toward the set, the bastard was going to owe him.

OooOooO

And what had our dear doctor agreed to?

Oh, nothing much. Just to pose for the Fund's annual _Men of Scotland Yard _calendar. And yes, we know, he's not really a member of Scotland Yard, but they didn't have many volunteers, not enough who could be pressured and/or guilted and/or blackmailed into posing, so Greg had got desperate and then devious and appealed to John's overdeveloped sense of duty.

So John had agreed, but he had set some ground rules:

His face was to be obscured.He got to pick which picture they used.If this ever – and he meant _ever_ – got back to Sherlock, Lestrade was buying the pints for an entire year. Then he had scratched that and decided it would be two.

Greg had agreed quickly – dare we say, too quickly? – to his terms, and had given him the date of the photo shoot. Which was how John had found himself standing in front of a professional photographer, shirtless and leaning against a police motorcycle and feeling like an utter prat.

(Though did we mention he was a shirtless prat? However, we digress…)

(And by the way, John was quite proud of that last condition he had set. Never let it be said that John H. Watson isn't brilliant. Not the Sherlock Holmes type of brilliant, of course, but brilliant about the practical side of life. Because with a certainty that usually only applied to death and taxes, he _knew_ this was going to get back to Sherlock somehow. And heaven help him when that happened. But he was getting two years of pints free. Although frankly, now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure the trade off was worth it. Perhaps he should have made it three.)

But for now John was getting a head start on those pints. He'd arranged to meet the DI at a pub far away both from the Yard and Baker Street so they wouldn't run into anyone they knew. And so they couldn't be found by anyone they knew.

Primarily one tall, smug consulting detective who was going to have a field day with this when he found out. He was amazed he had kept it from him as long as he had. Though to be fair, the case with the triplets, all dead in locked rooms in separate houses_had _been preoccupying him for the past week.

Greg entered the pub, a folder under his arm, and he looked around, grinning when he saw that John had picked a table far away from anyone else. Bastard. Definitely should have been three.

The DI collected his own pint, and headed for the table, sitting down and sliding the folder across to our dear doctor. And now as John looked at the shots, he could admit that maybe they weren't half bad. He went over them slowly, intrigued by how they had hidden his face in shadow while still leaving his chest visible. There was one where they had even managed to hide most of the scar on his shoulder. He was used to it now, and it didn't really bother him, but still, he didn't need everyone and their grandmother gawking at it. Only a slight edge of it was visible, just enough to hint at what lay in the shadows and to speak of danger. It was almost…mysterious.

(And seriously, did he really just use that to describe himself, even if it was in his own head? Maybe he was an utter prat. Though if he was a prat, he was still a shirtless one, at least in the pictures, not to mention a well-chiselled prat. Incidentally, we agree with his assessment of the photo. But again, ahem, we digress. Moving smartly on.)

Still, he had to pick one, and he knew that was the shot. John sat up. "Number 14."

"Oh good, that's the one the women down at the Yard liked too."

John stared at him and felt his face heat up like one of Sherlock's Bunsen burners. Greg grinned again at him. "Come on, mate, did you really think I was going to be the one picking out the photos for the men's calendar?"

"Uh, yes…I mean, no…I mean…Shit."

The DI's smile grew wider as he tapped the picture John had chosen. "I have to say John, I didn't realise you had this in you. The women were quite…appreciative. In fact, yours was the favourite of all the men in the calendar."

We should mention that it was just about at this point that John began to suspect he was well and truly fucked.

OooOooO

"Was that a bit not good, then, John?" Heads lifted from desks as John and Sherlock exited the lift and began to wend their way to Lestrade's office.

Our dear doctor rubbed his eyes for what had to be the three hundredth and sixty-first time that day. "Yes, Sherlock. Talking – loudly while drawing diagrams on the napkins, no less – about your experiment that requires you to dissolve eyeballs in battery acid while I was grabbing something to eat at McDonalds was more than a bit not good. Did you not see the mothers moving their children away from us?"

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "They should have regarded it as a free biology lesson. Better than they would receive in the appalling schools they no doubt attend."

Now it was just about here that John's life took a decided swerve to the right. One of those moments where your life just takes off in a direction you never, _ever_, expected.

How so? Well, it started with him walking into a wall. Not a real one, he's not that oblivious or blind, but into a woolly one. A black-coated wall, if you will. One that was remarkably solid despite being so thin.

"Oof," was his first, eloquent, response. The second began to be the culmination of a day's worth of Sherlock-frustration, "Sherlock! Just what the hell do you think-"

And that was when he saw it. And knew that his day was about to take a trip in a hand basket.

The calendar. Hanging prominently on the wall near the floor's kitchen, open to the month of June.

_His _month. Oh Jesus.

Let the games begin.

OooOooO

As for that tall drink of water in the black coat who had masqueraded as a wall for few seconds? Well, he was still rooted to the spot, and still doing a marvellous impersonation of said wall. Seriously, he should have won an Olivier.

And then he kept it up for a while longer, because honestly, there was no way he was able to move, even if he had wanted to.

Because that _picture_.

He didn't pay much attention to calendars – I mean, really, why did one even need a calendar when one had a smartphone with the date on it – and paid even less attention to the pictures that were usually attached to them. They were part of the background visual garbage that took up far too much room on his hard drive. It was _such _a bother to have to keep going in and deleting all that nonsense even if it only took a few seconds.

But he knew that he wouldn't be deleting this picture. In fact, it was going to be getting a pride-of-place spot in the Mind Palace. Even more in fact, if the Mind Palace had been a real place, it would have been the picture hanging over the hearth in the main hall, that's how much importance this one little image had suddenly gained in Sherlock's big brain.

That brain which was currently short-circuiting, because really, that _picture._

(Forgive Sherlock his misfiring brain, and his inability to formulate much in the way of coherent thought at that moment, okay? Because really, really? It is a _very_ fine picture. And incidentally, though he hadn't quite registered this fact yet, and wouldn't for another few minutes, there was something else starting to get fired up that required some of the processing power contained in that magnificent head.)

So Sherlock stood and stared for a few more minutes, not yet aware that his life had just taken that left turn to Albuquerque.

OooOooO

Consciously, John straightened his shoulders and drew himself up into a soldier's stance. If he was going down, he was going to go down manfully. He would face this like he was facing a firing squad. Which, when it's Sherlock Holmes you're facing, usually isn't so far off the mark.

But he and Sherlock seemed to have swapped places for the moment, because the great lanky git did something then that Sherlock never does but John does often: he stated the glaringly, blindingly obvious. "John. That's you in that photograph."

"Yes." A short, clipped answer. All that was missing was his name, rank and serial number.

"Without a shirt." Still not quite firing on all cylinders.

"Yes." The 'sir' was unspoken, but it was floating around somewhere above John's head.

"Why?"

Do you have any idea how vanishingly rare it is for Sherlock to ask why? Usually he gets the answers to all his questions just by observing, like the time he figured out that a woman's cat had been taken by her ex-lover out of spite just by looking at her manicure. Do you see? He had little need to ask why. Just another indication that Sherlock's brain had yet to come fully back online.

John was saved from having to say anything by Lestrade throwing open his office door, no doubt wondering why they were frozen in the middle of the floor. But let it not be said that Gregory Lestrade isn't smart in his way too, for he took one look at Sherlock, followed his gaze and let out a shout of laughter that caused all the detectives in earshot to stop what they were doing and stare.

He grinned cheerfully at John and was that a hint of smugness? "Should have made it three years, mate!"

Maybe it was the non sequitur, but Lestrade's comment seemed to reboot Sherlock's brain.

"Three years what?"

Okay, maybe not.

John sighed, resigned – oh, so resigned – to what was coming. "Our deal is only for two years."

Sherlock's brow furrowed and steam was almost pouring out of his ears as his synapses started refiring after their unplanned shutdown. "Ah. Two years of pints if you appeared in the calendar. Really, you gave yourself up too cheaply, John. Anyone can see that you deserved far more than that."

Lestrade's eyebrows tried to take leave of his face. John's jaw hit the floor and kept going, but something was starting to smoulder in his eyes because he knew Sherlock like no one else did.

As for Sherlock, he blinked very, very slowly as he realised what he had said.

Do you remember the Blue Screen of Death? That was Sherlock's mind at that moment. Blank. It had committed a '_critical error of a non-recoverable nature'. _Because you know what? There was no coming back from that one. Not with Lestrade standing there with a knowing, satisfied smile starting to grow on his face.

Those synapses that had been only slowly coming online roared into life as his brain demanded their instant attendance. For an issue of utmost importance had suddenly thrust itself out for inspection.

You see, it isn't often – in fact, it had happened exactly never before this one time – that Sherlock spoke without thinking. That lecture in McDonalds on the eyes and battery acid experiment? He knew what he was doing – he just didn't care what people thought.

(And truth be told, he knew it would annoy John. That was half the fun, but don't let John know that you know that.)

So that bit about John deserving far more than what he had got? Where the _hell_ had that come from? It needed examination. Fast. And this is what that magnificent brain, once more fully engaged after its systems error, told him:

He liked that picture. A lot.

He hadn't realised he would like a picture like that a lot.

He had, of course, seen pictures like that before and _they_ hadn't affected him.

Conclusion?

It was all about John.

But that was impossible.

John was his flatmate and blogger. His friend.

But was John more?

The answer hit him between the eyes (and somewhere else, but that's neither here nor there) with the force of a speeding train. He did. He loved John Watson. When had that happened? Why hadn't he realised it?

And was it starting to get hot in here?

So where did that leave him? With only one possible thing to say:

_When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._

He was in love with John Watson. It shouldn't be possible. But it was. However improbably.

_And I want to see him like he looks in that picture. __Now__._

He looked at John and saw understanding and – far more importantly – hearty agreement on his face.

Whatever Sherlock had come to the Yard for promptly flew out the window (and seriously, it wasn't _nearly_ as interesting as this). Because there was one other imperative issue that had to be taken care of before he dragged John back to Baker Street.

"How much for a calendar, Lestrade?"

OooOooO

And one last, really tiny little note? It was _John_ who ended up buying the pints for the next three years. And he never resented a single pound.


End file.
